Governments Must Cooperate for "Power-Down" as Oil Runs Out

It's essential for us to cut down our oil dependance, cutting down would have great benefits for those trying to conteract global warming.

Yes, the same actions will serve both purposes - namely dealing with the dearth of oil and curbing carbon emissions. Just so long as CTL isn't used to make-up the shortfall in crude oil, which would release more carbon overall than producing and burning crude oil-based fuels does.

YIKES, you write "bomb the inner cities to destroy the rapacious and desperate millions, before they become lawless and soulless roaming hoards."

What about the roaming small towners, ruralites, and suburbanites who are armed to the teeth?

Also, the first need is to get the National Academy of Sciences to issue a report on Peak Oil impacts so that politicians can begin to discuss Peak Oil. Since the NAS has the basic research already done, they can get some panels to report on this within a year. Without the NAS study, politicians will remain silent.

It would be nice to hear a drumbeat from Peak Oil scientists and bloggers about the need for a NAS study of Peak Oil impacts.

Cliff Wirth, http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/

Peak Oil is an interesting concept. It's like Peak Food. We were supposed to run out of food long ago... based on the production processes of the time. Didn't happen.

There is abundant oil; we are simply stuck with the political decisions of those who are anti-oil. That's fine. Come up with alternatives that don't wreck the world's economies.

No Clifford, I am not advocating this (of course NOT!) - do read it before panicking my friend! But this is a disaster scenario I have read about. I mention it because as you say, there is a need to preserve civil order rather than let it all descend into hell.

Hi Bruce: If you are saying that we are not about to run out of oil, I agree; we will be producing hydrocarbons for decades to come. However, there must come a peak year for oil production. I have written about peak oil and periodic gaps in supply and demand that will occur, and I agree that a consolidated strategy is necessary to avoid economic and social collapse. The bottom line is that if we can't produce oil fast enough to match demand for it, then cooperative alternative means must be implemented, based mainly on using less energy, in particular for transport.

If the world had continued with the putative schemes to prepare for "life without cheap oil" after the oil shocks of the 1970s, we might be in a more prepared state now; but sadly cheap oil came back onto and flooded the markets again and so these other means e.g. making oil from algae, electric cars, better public transport infrastructure especially in the US, were dropped.

However, we are where we are now, not in some more ideal place, and we do need to try to soften the energy crunch... I concede we may have left it too late though and it is more a case of trying to soften the crash rather than avoid it?

? What you can, you do, what you can?t, you teach ?, says an English proverb.

Not very nice for teachers, isn?t it ?

Well, I understand, Chris, that governments should do what you teach. But I observe they do not listen and do the opposite, desperately trying to recover the lost growth.

Why do they behave in this way ?

The only explanation I can see is that they cannot do anything else, remaining unable to master and oppose the overwhelming pressures that still constrain the global industrial civilisation to try to grow as much and as fast as it possibly can, even though it becomes ever more clear that the ultimate limits to growth are now in sight and fast approaching. It seems very likely, therefore, that such inescapable constraining pressures will go on acting as long as their resulting global action will remain able to sustain the annual-energy-production growth needed to keep the global system viable, leading to a systemic collapse when growth reverses durably into decline.

I have recently presented an analysis ending with that explanation.

Can you see another one ? As a scientist, you know, of course, that the natural laws driving the evolution of the industrial civilisation will go on acting independently of any bias related to the fact that you are an ? optimist by nature ??

I presume this is you, Andre'?

Accepted it is easier to stress (teach) a principle than to bring it into practice. We have spoken before about the events of summer 2008 and the trigger of $150 a barrel which seems to have precipitated the slide of various precarious economic edifices. You drew me a nice slide too, on my oil price analysis.

Yes, I think your analysis is valid, regarding a kind of hysteresis effect in the system that once started it continues to run according to its present course.

I would be all too easy to lose my optimism, but how valid the latter is does indeed depend on the nature of the forces that are underlying the events of resource depletion. In one sense the answer is simple - too many of us using too much stuff, and it will be first price rises and then a genuine lack of supply that puts the brakes on.

Most commentators me included are trying to raise awareness, and promote a notion of cooperation rather than conflict. Physical forces accepted, this is the only influence humans can make in these complex issues.

Please, excuse me, Chris, if I have somehow offended you with my quotation of that proverb, that was not my intention and I realise now there may be some misunderstanding. It was actually just an introduction for the observation that governments do not listen to what you say and do exactly the opposite. Such behaviour raises in my mind the question ?Why do they not listen ??, to which I have tried to answer.

It is of course the role of confirmed scientists like you to raise awareness and do their best to promote a notion of cooperation rather than conflict. Being somebody who tries to understand how the world he lives in works, I am very receptive to most of your articles and have learnt a lot from them. But the fact that governments apparently go on talking about growth perpetuation apparently ignoring what you and other scientists say (concerning the major role played by energy and everything around Peak Oil) leaves me very perplex? and rather pessimistic.

Regards.

Andr?.

Dear Andre',

sorry if I came over as a bit "crabby" (I am of course in no way offended and I always welcome your insight), but I am similarly perplexed, and often I fear that my "End Times" friends - very nice people but who think we have "had-it" basically" in some biblically predicted and biblically proportioned state of Armageddon - may well be right. Maybe the governments appear to do nothing because they believe there is nothing they can do other than just let the show roll-on.

Richard Heinberg has published another book based on the Oil-depletion Protocol of Colin Campbell, with the same title. This is his most optimistic and the bottom line is that if we are going to lose oil at 3%/year, the world's governments need to put alternatives in place to substitute for that by a matching amount.

But "how"?, is the real question. I think the answer to "why don't they do it" is based on the fact that cutting-back contravenes the principal of capitalism. Indeed, you are right, that in an attempt to come out of the present recession, every country is trying to "grow" its economy again and in one sense it is good to see the FT index up at about 4,400 again.

However, I think this will be short-lived and sooner or later there will be another crash, and the markets will simply oscillate in perpetuity because in reality we are at the limits of growth.

I can't see a quick technological fix in all honesty, and that leaves me rather pessimistic too. It's easy to say, yes, we need to curb our dependence on oil, but again how? and how quickly might that be done? Without doubt, if we do run into a stage when oil-supplies are falling we will have to cut our use of it, because there won't be enough of it around... simple as that, but the social consequences of such an unplanned crash could be horrific.

Perhaps it is too much of a culture-shock for a globalized, oil-dependent mindset to come out of denial that capitalism is flawed, as Karl Marx knew well enough. He wrote over a hundred years ago that it would eventually destroy itself, and I think we are living through the last days of capitalism.. maybe these are also the end-times, since the structure of developed societies is thoroughly interwoven with its principles?

I did begin to recover some optimism recently, and that was through reading about permaculture and regenerative agriculture. There are various articles on my http://ergobalance.blogspot.com blog, but the appeal to me is that it involves changing the way we use soil and the land so that nature does more if the work and less is needed in the way of oil and gas for fuel and fertilizers.

But how quickly we might transform say the east of England (our "breadbasket") from industrial farming methods to the natural state of soil, growing near year-round cover crops etc., I really don't know. My guess is it could take 50 - 100 years.

The deliberate powering-down of the world is an idea that will meet with huge resistance, and it may only be when those universal forces of supply/demand dictate change that any will occur. But that will be an anarchic crash rather than a planned, coordinated policy of reduction.

All best wishes,

Chris.